Deliberately drinking to harm unborn baby.

Pregnant South African women are deliberately drinking large quantities of alcohol to harm their unborn babies in a bid to earn more welfare money.The mothers, who are living in the Eastern Cape - one of the poorest areas in South Africa - binge drink to claim a disability benefit from the government before using their disabled children as a source of income.

That is awful. You do not have to be in someone's shoes to say abuse is not ok.

As someone who has walked in my shoes as a victim of abuse from a mother and a father and ended up with a life long disability, people don't have to walk in my shoes to agree with a wrong. That is a very co-dependent view actually to say you have to walk in someones shoes to not agree with something.

It takes a certain sort of person to DELIBERATELY disable their child so they can get money, and I'm NOT AND NEVER WILL be one of them, no matter how poor I become. I also take it the money never goes to the actual child for actual therapy/medical care.

What? There are extremely unfortunate circumstances all over the world and the vast majority of women don't resort to this. Perhaps they're better off choosing to have no children at all, rather than having children and deliberately inflicting life long ill health on to them.

This is not the same as an Australian woman doing the same thing, and can't be judged as such.

I do agree that it's sickening, but moreso that it's sickening that women feel that this is the only option they have to make sure their children are somewhat cared for. This isn't a matter of wanting more money for fake nails and a tandoori tan. This is more than likely a matter of starvation or not.

It's also nice to talk about having choice when it comes to children, but it's not exactly a realistic situation for women born into a country where they have limited access to contraception or safe abortion, where women are married off young and where rape is rife.

Desperate people do desperate things. You watch your children starve to death while you're impregnated with yet another you cannot care for. See if you wouldn't do what you could to make sure at least some of you survive.

There are many people all over the world that are in extreme circumstances and extreme poverty and do not resort to deliberately disabling their unborn child.

No, some just kill them when they are born.

I don't know how factual this story is, there aren't any immediate references to see where the information is coming from. Certainly the main issue seems to be that women are becoming addicted to a very harmful substance that they can get cheaper than other alcohol, which is in turn affecting unborn babies. Are they doing it on purpose to use their disabled kid for extra money? The story doesn't really give factual information about this ie numbers, research etc. It seems like a very convoluted way of earning a bit of extra money and the care etc required for a child with a disability doesn't really make it sound like a worthwhile endeavour.

Sorry need some facts to make a comment or take the story seriously. How many children are we talking about?

I would not judge the people in South Africa, particularly the indigenous people.

QUOTE

Eighteen years after the end of apartheid, South Africa is now judged to be one of the most unequal societies in the world and its 19 million children bear the brunt of the disconnect. The Unicef report found that 1.4 million children live in homes that rely on often dirty streams for drinking water, 1.5 million have no flushing lavatories and 1.7 million live in shacks, with no proper bedding, cooking or washing facilities. Four in 10 live in homes where no one is employed and, in cases of dire poverty, the figure rises to seven in 10. A total of 330,000 children - and five million adults - are currently infected with HIV, and 40 per cent die from the pandemic annually.

I think it's just a classic example of senationalist journalism that is more fantasy than fact. I can't imagine that there's an entire community of women anywhere in the world who are honestly giving themselves alcohol poisoning in order to give birth to children with congenital deformities and claim a few extra welfare benefits. The welfare system in African countries is almost nonexistent.

Tell that to someone who has been raped and fallen pregnant due to that rape.

Sorry sydblue - It still doesn't lessen the consequence of deliberately inflicting abuse on an unborn child. I'm not pretending to understand how traumatic and demoralizing life can be over there, however as others have highlighted - you don't need to walk a mile in someone's shoes to know right from wrong.

Don't many poor women do similar to their kids in places like India, so they can earn some money as beggars?I don't think women in a society such as ours can really comprehend what it's like to be in their circumstances.

Don't many poor women do similar to their kids in places like India, so they can earn some money as beggars?I don't think women in a society such as ours can really comprehend what it's like to be in their circumstances.

I agree. We cannot understand what day to day life is like and, whilst we may judge the women based on our own moral code and context, we are in no place to do so.

There are many people all over the world that are in extreme circumstances and extreme poverty and do not resort to deliberately disabling their unborn child.

And their babies die of starvation and malnutrition and lack of medical care. It's a hard choice isn't it, when you are so poor that you have no access to contraception or abortion.Do you bear a child that is healthy but rapidly becomes unhealthy, or do you bear a child that is disabled but the pension allows you to feed it, yourself, and any other children.

QUOTE (Mousky @ 07/01/2013, 06:19 PM)

Yeah. I don't think so.

It takes a certain sort of person to DELIBERATELY disable their child so they can get money, and I'm NOT AND NEVER WILL be one of them, no matter how poor I become. I also take it the money never goes to the actual child for actual therapy/medical care.

This is disgusting and innexcusible, I actually saw the program.

You're right, it does take a certain kind o person. One so utterly drowning in inequality and poverty and disenfranchisement that this is the only option open to them.You know what I find disgusting and inexcusable? That there are women in the world so poor that they cannot feed, clothe, house, educate, or seek healthcare for their children. We have a single mothers allowance and other parenting allowances here. SAHM here are not considers 'dole bludgers' - even though the employment prospects for any woman in this country far far exceeds that of any poor black South African woman. You cannot get a job, even if you tried. You cannot get money to raise your child. You risk it dying in infancy because of this. It's pretty sh*t, huh?

The fact that this happens is disgusting. Rather than place individual blame on these women, why not try to see how the situation might be changed for them. The blame for this lies at the feet of the whole world (including me and you), not at the feet of these desperately poor and marginalized mothers.

Don't many poor women do similar to their kids in places like India, so they can earn some money as beggars?I don't think women in a society such as ours can really comprehend what it's like to be in their circumstances.

This story made me think of the people who blind children so they earn more money as beggars

I can't believe how ignorant some people can be. Do you really think this is about a dole cheque? Do you actually think these women have readily available access to contraception? Do you actually believe that these women want to bring disabled children into the world? Do women sitting propped up in front of their computers think they have walked a mile in the shoes of a poverty stricken African woman?

I’m not expecting you to be as calm as you might be right now. What I mean is that if your panic levels are through the roof during a stressful situation, let’s bring them down to just under the ceiling.

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